Work Text
Rey drinks.
She drinks to imagine.
She drinks to forget.
She drinks so she can finally fall asleep in the early hours of the morning.
This is her routine. Work, drink, eat, drink, drink, drink, sleep. Rise, recycle, repeat.
Of course, she has friends to break the monotony. She is normal and normal people have friends. Like Finn and Rose. And Poe, sorta. But they all exist within the fragile and isolated bubble of work. She likes them but she doesn’t trust them. They don’t know about her…problem. They have their own issues, but nothing like hers. They don’t skip from gas station to gas station on different days of the week, hoping the pimply, teenage cashiers don’t catch on to her habit. And wondering ashamedly why she should care. She’s a nobody and, consequently, what kind of hubris would lead her to think anyone would care enough to notice? And because it’s not a problem, not really. Not yet.
It doesn’t make her miss work, ever. Maybe once or twice, with nausea rolling thick through her stomach and a sharp headache slamming behind her eyes, she’s dimmed the lights of her classroom and proclaimed, half-heartedly, a movie day, which her students received with joy and loud acclaim. So what if she’s drinking a bottle of wine every night. And maybe a beer or two afterward. Or a few vodka cranberries as a chaser. She’s not a fucking alcoholic. She always shows up. She’s not a fucking alcoholic. She’s nothing like…Them. Or how she thinks They might have been.
Anyway, the problem isn’t the alcohol.
It’s the space between.
It’s the reason she is this way.
It’s because no one cares.
Once she pretended that They were still looking for her, that her friends noticed she was struggling internally, that the people who claimed a presence in her life were genuinely attuned to her feelings and sentiments. But time has passed and she’s realized that while most people aren’t outwardly abusive, they are casually neglectful of her. And of her less than appropriate choices.
Consequently, she’s become so very good at finding the balance between being black-out drunk and still being able to function the next day. Colleagues, principals, students smile vacantly at her in the hallways of the high school as she holds empty conversation after empty conversation. She does everything the school asks and not a bit more.
They fucking love her for it.
After six years of this balancing act, of thinking no one is watching, Rey accidentally fucks up in the most epic way.
It’s a Thursday morning and she’s overindulged in bourbon on the rocks and feels like absolute and utter trash as she pulls her old Buick into the teachers’ parking lot.
In class today they’re supposed to be discussing Frankenstein, but she feels like his monster. Alienated, and vaguely unable to understand herself and others, and inalterably alone.
Totally and utterly alone.
She tries not to analyze how exactly she will conduct this discussion when it is so clearly a topic with which she is overtly connected. Disgusted by her own self-pity and lack of self-control, Rey slowly approaches the building, wincing at the bright sunlight despite her large, dark sunglasses.
Thankfully, no students have attempted to take advantage of her morning tutorials, so she sucks down coffee at her desk while slowly checking the copious emails in her inbox. She scrolls past one regarding a new student in order to mark off a few more items on the perfunctory to-do shit list for work she has, which is ongoing and seemingly ceaseless.
Absorbed in her professional duties, and aching slightly from the misery of dehydration through the course of a strong hangover, Rey groans internally as the bell for second period rings.
She takes another strong pull of coffee before moving around her desk to pull down the projector screen. An unconsciously massive sigh escapes between her lips as she finishes the task and slowly trudges back to behind her desk.
As her students filter into the classroom and gradually take note of and celebrate the appearance of the projector screen (and most likely, the appearance of a movie), Rey pretends to sip nonchalantly on her coffee whilst actually gulping it down, careless of the scalding burn as it slides down her throat, in a pathetic attempt to wake up.
The bell rings loudly and Rey moves to close the door. At that moment, a massive, hulking figure stomps past the threshold.
This cannot be a high school student, Rey thinks stupidly but assuredly.
She racks her brain for a notice of a new teacher, assistant principal, anything. Is he here to evaluate or check on her? This man….he’s built like a fucking solid oak tree. Rey’s eyes linger on his muscular arms and extreme height. Evolutionary instincts alone dictate that she has to climb him. And fuck him.
Dark, soft hair inelegantly layered down to his shoulders, large brown eyes, a long and pouty set of gorgeous lips slightly too large for his face, a skintight black t-shirt and dark denim jeans…he doesn’t dress or look like anyone she works with, so why is he in her senior British Literature classroom?
After a moment of awkward staring on both their parts, she clears her throat.
“Can I help you?”
A dark, indiscernible gaze meet hers and she melts in their chocolatey shade…although upon closer inspection- flecks of hazel? There’s a slight…olive green? Wait, why is she noticing this???
Oh fuck.
“Is this senior English?” he questions, in a deep baritone that makes Rey’s more intimate parts quiver.
She straightens indignantly.
“Yes, and I’m Ms. Niima. How can I help you?”
He stares at her for an indeterminate amount of time, assessing and silent. His mouth works slightly back and forth in an oddly endearing display of uncertainty.
“Ben Solo. I’m new here.”
Rey’s jaw drops slightly at the connection with the name in the email she so flippantly ignored earlier. The name of the new fucking transfer student.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Ben hates and Ben hurts.Sometimes one more than the other. And always silently. After eleven different schools in three years, (an impressive achievement, he thinks sardonically to himself, because he would never say it out loud, because he says so little out loud), he is here.At this new, bullshit place which some would deign to call an institution of learning.His Mother pulled some strings and it was either this or possible jail time...he's angry, not stupid. It's not really a choice, he thinks with some small amount of resolve. He'll show up but beyond that...he's ambivalent.He knows She did it because it would reflect poorly in her reputation as a state senator, not because She gives a single damn about him.There's an acrid taste in his mouth as he surveys the entryway of the school. It looks the same as any other. The kids outside, wandering around, flirting with each other, goofing off...they look identical to the ones at the last schools he had been at.The thought depresses him more deeply than anything else. He can go anywhere after high school but the people are all the same...would he really be going somewhere different?A loud clang signals the guileless herd to move to first period. Ben reluctantly follows them and makes his way to the front office to collect his schedule. Somehow, despite his inconsistent attendance and disciplinary record, he has managed to stay on track to graduate. (Surprisingly, it also has nothing to do with Her influence.) And because this high school has eight periods, he even miraculously has an "off" period. Which means sleeping in, and for once, is a decent thing about his usually godforsaken day.The receptionist is a bitch. Ben explains minutely that he's new and gives her his most solemn gaze until she shifts slightly, unnerved. She sniffs and points him in the direction of the counselors' office.He receives his schedule from an overly peppy, bleached blonde woman who introduces herself as Ms.So-And-So (he doesn't recall her actual name, just the remotely creepy way in which she has dressed herself in clothing similar to his peers). After glancing at the schedule, he sees that his first teacher is a Niima, Rey for English Literature. Great. A guy teaching on-level English for high school seniors. It’s probably a football coach.To make up for the future injury and insult to his intelligence, he looks at the map of the school provided below his schedule, then takes some time to waste a moment in the school’s library. He checks out two books. The librarian gives him a routinely vacuous smile until she she sees the titles and hesitates.This isn’t common reading, her wary eyes seem to want to say.I know, Ben’s gaze responds languidly as he carelessly raises an eyebrow.Once she has handed his selections to him, albeit with a judgmental pause, he takes the copies of In Cold Blood and The Stranger Beside Me and slowly tucks them into his cross body bag.He’s killed (har har) most of his non-existent first period and heads to (probably Coach) Niima’s class.The late bell rings and he realizes he’s going to have to lengthen his already elongated stride to get through the door semi-punctually.He sees the door start to close and makes his first step past the threshold.Where he expects to see a fat, balding man is in fact a very slim, very slight brunette girl. A very fucking attractive one, actually.He first notices the sprinkling of light russet freckles across her cheeks. Then the dark circles below her eyes covered ineffectually by a concealer which was clearly not blended over the freckles.And those large, blinking doe eyes...beneath a hint of mascara to enhance her sloping eyelashes...Okay, so his classmate is a fucking Bambi, who cares, he’s totally seen girls like this before, he lies to himself.Bambi looks startled. And then instinctively looks him up and down.“Can I help you?” she says timidly, while attempting a semblance of forced temerity.“Is this senior English?” Ben asks lowly.“Yes, and I’m Ms. Niima. How can I help you?”She flushes slightly and they realize simultaneously that she has repeated herself.Ben tried his damndest not to let his surprise show. Holy fuck. This is the teacher? This is the teacher. She looks so fucking young, though...and slender and light and he could actually just bend her over that desk right there and...He grasps for a semblance of a response and resurfaces gruffly with, “Ben Solo. I’m new here.”